Minute Verdict
Perplexity Computer is the agent inside Perplexity, from $17 a month billed yearly. It earns that price for someone who already works in Perplexity and has recurring reports, decks or app builds to hand off, because Pro now carries a weekly Computer allowance before a single credit is spent. It does not suit anyone who refuses an annual bill, or whose work is one long coding session where a $20 editor agent gives more control.
Best for: a researcher, analyst or solo operator who produces the same report or deck every week. Not for: anyone who will not buy a yearly plan, or who needs a month-to-month exit before committing. From: $17/mo billed yearly, checked November 12, 2026
What Perplexity Computer does
Computer is not a model you pick from a list. It is a worker that takes a goal, chooses the models and tools, and carries the job to a deliverable: a report, a deck, a small app, an email sent from your own Gmail. Perplexity draws the line plainly, and it is the right one for a buyer: Perplexity answers questions, Computer does the work. One prompt can chain research, a comparison table, a slide deck and the email that sends it.
The construction behind that is a set of agents working at once. Market research, financial analysis and news monitoring are specialist sub-agents, with a coordination layer that hands work between them, and a sandbox that keeps files and memory across sessions. Connectors are what make the worker useful rather than clever: Gmail, Outlook, GitHub, Linear, Slack, Notion, Snowflake, Databricks and Salesforce are the names Perplexity puts forward, alongside premium data feeds for market and financial work. The same machinery repeats a job on a schedule, which is where the product stops being a long chat.
There are two ways in. In the browser and the mobile apps, Computer sits in the mode toggle next to Search, and Search never consumes credits. On NVIDIA hardware, Portable Computer runs the model, the scheduler and the sandbox on your own machine, keeps the files local and uses no credits, with web steps escalated to the cloud only with your permission. If you already pay for Comet, the same worker drives the sidebar in Work mode, which our Comet review covers separately.
On this page
What you get for the money
| Plan | Price | What is included | The limit that matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Ask with citations, limited weekly usage, a few Computer turns on some accounts | One agent at a time, and the free turns never reset |
| Pro | $17/mo billed yearly | Expanded Computer access, a weekly Computer allowance, 4,000 bonus credits as a limited offer, deep research, model choice | No monthly credits, and the bonus credits expire after 30 days |
| Max | $167/mo billed yearly | 10,000 monthly credits, maximum Computer usage, 35,000 bonus credits, frontier models, priority features | The only consumer plan with a monthly credit pool |
Pro is $204 a year, Max is $2,004 a year, and the subscription buys access while the credits buy the work. A quick fact or definition uses 15 to 70 credits and a multi-step research report 350 to 950, so at 100 credits to the dollar most single reports land under $10 of extra spend. A data dashboard at 2,400 to 9,800 credits and an app build at 15,000 or more are a different budget, and neither is included in the plan price. The Perplexity pricing page carries the same grid for the subscription itself.
Where it falls short
- No month-to-month price. Both paid plans are quoted billed yearly, so the cost of leaving after one month is unknown before checkout, and Perplexity has not published a monthly figure since the plan was repriced.
- Pro carries no monthly credits. The weekly allowance resets every seven days, does not roll over, and runs tasks on Light only once the credits are gone, so heavier settings need a credit balance on top of the subscription.
- The bonus credits are a first-month gift, not a rate. 4,000 on Pro and 35,000 on Max are one-time and expire after 30 days, which makes the second month more expensive than the first unless you buy credits.
- Effort mode is absent from the macOS and Windows desktop apps, and the setting does not sync between devices. An Ultra task started on the iPhone does not move the browser off Light.
- Nothing published caps what an automation can spend. The schedule can fire every 15 minutes, each run consumes credits, and the only brake is the auto-refill threshold and the spending limit you set.
Perplexity Computer alternatives
Perplexity Computer is strongest where the job is research in, document out. The three routes below win on a different axis, and each one is cheaper to start on.
- Claude Pro at $20 a month billed monthly, or $17 billed yearly, brings Claude Code and Cowork into one subscription and keeps a month-to-month exit open. See the chatbots we have reviewed.
- Cursor at $20 a month puts an agent inside your code workspace, which is the better buy when the deliverable is software and you want to read every diff. Read our Cursor review.
- Google AI Studio keeps a free tier on some models and charges $2 per million input tokens for Gemini 4 Argon until November 30, 2026, for anyone who would rather wire a script than rent a worker. Read our Google AI Studio review.
Who it is for: Perplexity Computer
Computer suits a person with a queue. Weekly competitor briefs, a sales summary pulled from Salesforce into Slack, a market scan with a deck attached, invoice checks in Gmail: work that repeats, that reads a handful of sources, and that nobody would miss doing by hand. If you already pay for Pro, the weekly allowance makes the first version of that queue free to try, and the effort setting lets you keep routine jobs on Light where they cost least.
It does not suit a buyer who wants a fixed bill, because the subscription is the entry ticket and the work is metered. It does not suit a developer in a long debugging session either, where a coding agent at $20 a month gives line-level control that a sandboxed cloud worker cannot. And it does not suit a team that needs the price per seat before a pilot, since Enterprise pricing is quoted on request.
How we checked
This is a research review: we have not run a Computer task, so there is no score, no timing and no sample of its output. We read the plan page, the plan comparison, and the help pages on credits, effort mode and automations on November 12, 2026, and every price on this page carries that date. We did not verify what a task costs in practice, since the credit ranges are examples rather than guarantees, and we could not test the free turns because their number is not published. A hands-on pass would run one research report, one scheduled automation and one app build, and compare the credits each one actually consumed.
What to do next
Start on the plan you already hold and give Computer one recurring job for a week, on Light, before buying credits. If the output replaces work you were doing by hand, Pro at $17 a month billed yearly is the sensible tier, since the weekly allowance covers routine runs and the credits are there for the exceptions. Move to Max only when monthly credits are the constraint, because $167 buys 10,000 credits and higher limits, not a different worker.
FAQ
Is Perplexity Computer free? Not on a normal account. Computer is sold with Pro at $17 a month billed yearly and Max at $167, and some free accounts get a limited number of free turns that never reset.
How much does a Computer task cost? Credits, not a flat fee. 100 credits are $1, a quick fact uses 15 to 70 credits and a multi-step research report 350 to 950.
Does Pro include monthly credits? No. Pro includes a weekly Computer allowance that resets every seven days and does not roll over, plus a one-time bonus of 4,000 credits. Monthly credits start on Max, at 10,000.
What does effort mode change? It sets how much work Computer puts in, from Light to Ultra, and picks the coordinating model behind it. It is not a spending cap, and it is absent from the desktop apps.
Can Computer run a task on a schedule? Yes. Automations can repeat as often as every 15 minutes, in the cloud, and each run consumes credits.
Sources
Sources
- https://www.perplexity.ai/pro (checked November 12, 2026)
- https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/pricing (checked November 12, 2026)
- https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/13838041-how-credits-work-on-perplexity.md (checked November 12, 2026)
- https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/20260917-effort-mode-in-perplexity-computer.md (checked November 12, 2026)
- https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/13837784-what-is-computer.md (checked November 12, 2026)
Update log
November 12, 2026: first publication, research review, plans, credit rates and effort settings read on Perplexity’s own pages.
